A Guide to the History of Physical Education

THE GREEKS.

Man's earliest endeavor to perfect the body, discipline the mind, and mold the character of the young by means of selected forms of physical activity and special regimen could doubtless be traced back to a prehistoric age. The study of ancient customs of China and India, Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, the Phœnicians and Carthaginians, the Persians, and the Hebrews might also yield some curious facts. But if one's purpose is to follow the evolution of modern forms of physical education in Europe and America and to note the significant contributions and modifications introduced at various stages, it is sufficient to begin with Greece as it was in the century and a half whose middle point is the year of Salamis and Thermopyle (480 B. C.). There we find "gymnastics" generally adopted as a necessary part of education, provision everywhere made for the exercise of youths and grown men in establishments supported and administered by the state, great national festivals at which the chief attractions were contests in physical prowess, and at a later day sculptors able to reproduce from the types presented to them in the gymnasia ideal human figures which have never been excelled in beauty.